As we passed by the Tintaya open-pit copper mine, I was unprepared for the scene of utter desolation. The fully laden hired lorry was heading back to Arequipa from the highland town of Yauri, where my companions had purchased 20 head of ganado (cattle) earlier that morning. The cattle market had seemed impressive enough to my untutored eyes, but it was nothing like the old days, they informed me.
Riding unhindered in the shallow wooden pen on top of the driver's compartment, I took in the soaring majesty of the southern Peruvian altiplano. Chains of peaks receded endlessly into the distance, merging sublimely with the high-altitude horizon haze. The landscape was suggestive of eternal immutability. In the midst of an exploited continent, here was a sheltered place seemingly beyond the rapacious grasp of multinational commerce.
Before long, however, pristine puna pastures beneath the dazzling cobalt sky gave way to a vast tumult of ravaged rock and earth. It felt like someone had taken hold of my Andean idyll and was now violently choking it to death. After about 30 seconds of shocked incomprehension, I gradually realised that this horrific spectacle was the Australian-operated mine we had passed during the previous night's 10-hour bus trip to Yauri. Half-asleep and unbearably cramped, I had paid little heed to the familiar BHP logo on a roadside billboard, illuminated by the eerie glare of harsh industrial lights that ringed the complex.
Now, in the broad light of day, there could be no turning away. The gouged and pulverised mine site extended for thousands of hectares. Far more than an ugly blot on the landscape, the mine glowered like a triumphant assertion of the capitalist industrial age. Even here, at an altitude of 4000 metres in a land of sacred peaks worshipped for millennia as divine entities (apus) the imperialist white man's Western values had encroached. The mine was as much a symbol of cultural conquest as a profit-generating business concern. Sacrilege, this business of exploiting Earth's wild and holy places.
My reaction having been observed, a slightly sardonic voice called out above the rushing wind, "Es la mina de tus compatriotas los Australianos" (It's the mine of your Australian compatriots). My sense of shame was profound, not because I had personally contributed to this spectacle of environmental degradation, but because I had been ignorant of its existence. It seemed appalling that a major corporation based in one's country could wreak such havoc in a land so far away. Why was it not front-page news? Corporate media, corporate values.
Given the inherent toxicity of surface mining, it is little wonder that the local cattle trade has been declining since extraction operations commenced at Tintaya. During the early 1980s, the Peruvian government forcibly acquired 2368 hectares from local indigenous communities, which received approximately US$3 per hectare by way of compensation. This sordid land-grab was backed up by threats and intimidation, and targeted landowners had little choice but to comply.
In 1994, the government-owned Tintaya site — as yet undeveloped — was sold off to US-based Magma Copper. Two years later, BHP acquired Magma Copper and with it a 99.9% interest in the Tintaya mine. Seeking to maximise profit, BHP embarked on a major expansion of mining activity. A further 1509 hectares of land was wrested from local inhabitants in order to construct an acid-leaching copper oxide plant and tailings dam. This allowed the company to process lower-grade ore, thereby increasing annual copper yield. The conventional processing of higher-grade copper sulphide ore was also stepped up, using the environmentally devastating froth flotation technique.
Sulfuric acid and other toxic by-products of copper extraction soon began seeping from Tintaya waste reservoirs into local streams and groundwater. Local inhabitants complained of contaminated water supplies and reported the onset of alarming health problems such as chronic rashes, debilitating stomach disorders and persistent migraine. It was also noticed that dust emanating from the mine ruined previously lush pastures, leading to a drastic loss of livelihood for communities that have depended on cattle-rearing and other agricultural activities for generations.
At first, BHP's well-rehearsed policy was to ignore such complaints. Several prominent NGOs then took an interest in the case, and the mining giant reluctantly entered into negotiations with affected local communities seeking compensation. Since 2000, when the dialogue process began, the increasingly profitable Tintaya mine has continued to devastate this region of the Andes. Yet virtually nothing in the way of substantive compensation has been offered. It is all too clear that BHP-Billiton regards the much-vaunted negotiations as nothing more than a public relations exercise.
My companions no longer travel to Yauri to acquire cattle. "Poco ganado ahora", veteran cattleman Don Guillermo recently told me, "ya se acabo" (Few cattle now, it's already finished). The story of Tintaya is typical of the consequences of neoliberal globalisation and resource-based imperialism in Latin America. More than half of Peru's 6000 indigenous communities are currently adversely impacted by mining operations. When the multinationals move in, economies that have sustained peasant communities for generations are inevitably shattered. These crimes against humanity and the natural environment will only stop when the citizens of affluent countries refuse to acquiesce.